Virginia Wynette Pugh, 5 May 1942, Itawamba County, near Tupelo, Mississippi, USA, d. 6 April 1998, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Wynette is primarily known for two songs, Stand By Your Man and D.I.V.O.R.C.E., but her huge catalogue includes 20 US country number 1 hits, mostly about standing by your man or getting divorced. After her father died when she
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24 January 1941, Brooklyn, New York, USA. With a career as a pop hitmaker stretching across five decades, Diamond has veered between straightforward pop, a progressive singer-songwriter style and middle-of-the-road balladry. He attended the same high school as Neil Sedaka and Bobby Feldman of the Strangeloves and began songwriting as a young teenager. He made his first recor
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James Travis Reeves, 20 August 1923, Galloway, Texas, USA, d. 31 July 1964, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. (Reeves plaque in the Country Music Hall Of Fame mistakenly gives his date of birth as 1924). Reeves father died when he was 10 months old and his mother was left to raise nine children on the family farm. Although only aged five, Reeves was entranced when a bro
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14 January 1937, Beaumont, Texas, USA. Discovered by songwriter Jack Rhodes, Spears first record, as Billie Jo Moore, Too Old For Toys, Too Young For Boys, earned her $4, 200 at the age of 15. Despite appearances on The Louisiana Hayride, she did not record regularly until she signed with United Artists Records in 1964. Following her producer, Kelso Herston
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Lynn Rene Anderson, 26 September 1947, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA. Anderson, the daughter of country songwriters Casey and Liz Anderson, was raised in California. She started performing at the age of six, but her first successes were in horse shows. Her quarter horses amassed 700 trophies and she won major awards as a rider at shows all over California. In 1966, recordin
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18 March 1938, Sledge, Mississippi, USA. Charley Pride was born on a cotton farm, which, as a result of his success, he was later able to purchase. Pride says, My dad named me Charl Frank Pride, but I was born in the country and the midwife wrote it down as Charley. Harold Dorman, who wrote and recorded Mountain of Love, also hails from Sledge and wro
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3 April 1928, Shelby, North Carolina, USA, d. 17 November 2003, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. If loneliness meant world acclaim, then Gibson, with his catalogue of songs about despair and heartbreak, should have been a superstar. Considering himself a songwriter who sings rather than a singer who writes songs, Gibson is best remembered as the author of three standar
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Formed in Kilrush, County Clare, Eire in August 1963, this quartet (originally known as the Wolfe Tones Ballad Group) has been a rebellious presence in the folk music scene since their inception. Their greatest success has been among the Irish diaspora in the USA, but their fanbase extends from Eire to Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Australia.The f
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27 May 1939, Floydada, Texas, USA. Williams father was a mechanic whose job took him to other regions and much of his childhood was spent in Corpus Christi, Texas. Williams mother played guitar and he grew up listening to country music. He and Lofton Kline formed a semi-professional folk group called the Strangers Two, and then, with the addition of Susan Taylor,
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Francesco Paolo LoVecchio, 30 March 1913, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 6 February 2007, San Diego, California, USA. Laine had been a chorister at the Immaculate Conception Church in his citys Sicilian quarter before entering showbusiness proper on leaving school. For nearly a decade he travelled as a singing waiter, dancing instructor (with a victory in a 1932 dance mara
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